Machines for planting tubers and the like

ABSTRACT

A machine for planting tubers, corms, bulbs or the like, such as potatoes, of the kind in which at least one coulter is adapted to draw a furrow in the soil as the machine is moved forward and means are provided for delivering a succession of the tubers from a supply carried by the machine on to driven belt means which are adapted to feed the tubers into furrow, has the belt means arranged to cause rotation of the tubers at least at some part of their travel along the belt means. The belt means may comprise a delivery trough of which one side at least comprises a continuous belt adapted to be driven at a speed related to the land speed of the machine but preferably both sides of the delivery trough comprise continuous driven belts and the belts are then arranged to be driven at substantially different speeds. The induced rotation of the tubers causes them to string out into line and substantially avoids the presentation of &#39;&#39;&#39;&#39;doubles&#39;&#39;&#39;&#39; to the furrow.

United States Patent [72] Inventor Peter Alfred Hobbs St. Albans,England 211 ApplNo 741,759 [22] Filed July 1, 1968 [45] Patented May 25,1971 [73] Assignee National Research Development Corporation London,England [32] Priority July 5, 1967 [33] Great Britain [31] 31079/67 [54]MACHINES FOR PLANTING TUBERS AND THE LIKE 7 Claims, 5 Drawing Figs.

[52] US. Cl 221/224 [51] Int. Cl B65h 5/00 [50] Field of Search. 111/34;221/173, 224, 253; 198/76, 33 (R2) [56] References Cited UNITED STATESPATENTS 1,069,362 8/1913 Wegner 198/(33R2) 1,333,006 3/1920 Welser, Jr

Primary Examiner-Stanley H. Tollberg Attorney-Larson and TaylorABSTRACT: A machine for planting tubers, corms, bulbs or the like, suchas potatoes, of the kind in which at least one coulter is adapted todraw a furrow in the soil as the machine is moved forward and means areprovided for delivering a succession of the tubers from a supply carriedby the machine on to driven belt means which are adapted to feed thetubers into furrow, has the belt means arranged to cause rotation of thetubers at least at some part of their travel along the belt means. Thebelt means may comprise a delivery trough of which one side at leastcomprises a continuous belt adapted to be driven at a speed related tothe land speed of the machine but preferably both sides of the deliverytrough comprise continuous driven belts and the belts are then arrangedto be driven at substantially different speeds. The induced rotation ofthe tubers causes them to string out into line and substantially avoidsthe presentation of doubles" to the furrow.

PATENTED was I97! SHEET 1 OF 4 PATENTED HAYZS l97| 3580.417

SHEET 3 [IF 4 PATENTEU was an SHEET 0F 4 E Q x FIG. 4.

"IIIIIIIIIIIIII I MACHINES FOR PLANTING TUBERS AND THE LIKE Thisinvention relates to machines for planting tubers, corms, bulbs or thelike hereinafter referred to as potatoes. The invention relates inparticular to potato planting machines of the kind having at least onecoulter adapted to draw a furrow, or furrows, in the soil as the machineis moved forward and means for delivering a succession of the potatoesfrom a supply carried by a machine on to driven belt means which areadapted to feed the potatoes into the, or each, furrow.

According to the invention, in a planting machine of the kind specified,the belt means is arranged to cause rotation of the potatoes at least atsome part of their travel towards the delivery point(s) to the, or therespective, furrow. Thus, the belt means may comprise a singlecontinuous belt adapted to cooperate with other means such as a secondcontinuous belt or one side of a trough, of which the first belt mayform part; in the case where the belt means comprises two, or more,belts, the speed of one of the belts is arranged to be different fromthat of the other or others. It may be found to be advantageous to beable to have one belt moving and another stationary, or uneven to havethe belts moving in opposite directions. In the single beltconstruction, the mere movement of the one belt is arranged to providethe necessary rotation of the potatoes by engagement thereof by both theside of the trough and the belt and in the case of the multibeltconstruction the difference in speeds causes the rotation.

From the point of view of high overall speed of delivery to thefurrow(s), it will probably be found that in every case it is beneficialto have both belts moving in the same direction.

The speed of the or one or each of the belts may be arranged to beadjustable so as to provide means for adjusting the amount of rotationimparted to the potatoes and the speed of the, or at least one, belt ispreferably arranged to bear a definite relation to the speed of travelof the machine over the ground.

In operation of a machine in accordance with the invention, the rotationcaused by the belt means will tend to cause the potatoes to string outinto line and to catch up with the foremost. The belt means may be suchthat rotation occurs only towards one end thereof but it is possible inany event to adjust the speed, or relative speeds, of the belt means sothat the potatoes pass from the belt means to the furrow at regularspaced intervals. It appears that, up to a point, the longer the beltmeans, the less the possibility of more than one potato doubles')passing from the belt means at the same time.

The movement of the potatoes will, normally, from the point of view ofconvenience, be arranged to be in the opposite direction to that oftravel of the machine but there is no reason why the belt means shouldnot have any direction of movement relative to the general direction ofmovement of the machine. Moreover the belt means may be generallyhorizontal or it may be convenient to incline the means to thehorizontal. Preferably the supply of potatoes to the belt device is froma main hopper means through secondary hopper means, the floor of thecutter being arranged to be reciprocated about one or more axes, so asto facilitate passage of the potatoes to the belt means. The belt meansis of any length greater than the feed means from the secondary hopper.

The main hopper means may be compartmented to provide a feed of potatoesfor different furrows or the delivery means therefrom may be arranged tosupply a plurality of furrows.

The secondary hopper means preferably comprises a metering device formetering the supply of potatoes to the belt means and it may benecessary to compromise between the setting of the metering device andthe feed speed, or resultant feed speed, of the belt means in order toattain a desired spacing of planted potatoes. Normally the speed of thebelt means can be chosen, for instance by gear drive and/or size ofdriving pulleys, to meet a particular range of spacing that may berequired.

Further, the coulter may be adapted to form a separate placement offertilizer for the potatoes.

It is found, that, by use of the invention, acceptably accurate spacingcan be achieved at relatively high speeds of travel. Thus, where, inknown machines, it is not possible to achieve a planting speed of morethan about 1 or 2 mph, by use of the present invention speeds of 4 mph.and more can be readily achieved. Moreover, because the feed path can bemade relatively gentle in action, any shoots that may be present in thepotatoes tend not to be knocked off or damaged, and advantage will begained because the seed potatoes could give rise to advancement in termsof weeks in reaching maturity of the crop over crops grown from similarpotatoes planted by known methods.

One embodiment of the invention will now be described by way of examplewith reference to the accompanying drawings:

FIG. 1 of the drawings shows a part plan view of a doublerow potatoplanting machine incorporating two differential speed belt feed devices;

FIG. 2 is a side view of the potato planter;

FIG. 3 is a part end view on the line III-III of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a part view of the drive to the belts of the feed device;

FIG. 5 illustrates the metering tipper potatoes to the belts.

The machine comprises a trailer chassis 1 adapted to be secured to thetowing hitchof a vehicle, such as an agricultural tractor, so as to betowed behind the vehicle, the trailer having two land wheels 2 whichsupport the chasses from which depend two spaced hollow coulters 3.These coulters are in a line across the fore-and-aft axis of the trailerbut they could be staggered, if desired. The spacing interval will be asrequired and the coulters themselves are of channel section havingleading edges generally V-shaped in plan view, each coulter beingarranged nearly vertically with the apex of the V facing forwardly andbeing appropriately reinforced to divide the soil and form a furrow asthe trailer is towed forwards, and the sheet-metal flanges of theleading edges extending rearwardly in the form of parallel sidewalls 4which define a duct through which the potatoes are dropped successivelyinto the furrow so formed.

The depth of the furrows is determined by adjustment mechanism 5 whichis provided on the land wheels 2 of the machine. Thus each land wheel ismounted on rearwardly-extending legs 6 pivoted to the chassis at 7. Thelegs 6 are of cranked form and the rear ends are pivoted at 8 to meanswhich is adjustable relative to the chassis by means of lead screw 5. Bysuitably rotating the lead screw through the medium of a hand braceattachment for the square head of the lead screw, the rear end of thechassis can be lowered or raised relatively to the ground and theposition of the coulter relative to the soil is thereby determined.

The chassis carries a hopper 9 which is of bifurcated construction tofeed the secondary hopper 10 associated with each of two double-beltfeed devices 1 1.

Each secondary hopper 10 is mechanically reciprocated by means of aneccentric operated by sprocket 12 driven by chain and sprocket from thebelt drive shaft 13. The shaft 13 is operated by chain and sprocketdrive 14, 15 from a multispeed gear box 16 which in turn is operateddirectly from one of the land wheels 2, as shown in FIG. 1. The chaindrive from the land wheel to the gear box is housed within the wheelmounting 6.

The inner pulleys 17, 19 of the two belt feeds are keyed to the shaft 13and the outer pulleys 18,20 are mounted on bronze bushes (21, FIG. 4) torotate relatively to shaft 13. Referring now to the pulley pair 17,18,the drive for pulley 18 is through meshing gears 22,23, slave shaft 24and meshing gears 25,26. Gear 26 is keyed to the shaft 13 and the ratiosof the gear wheels in the train to the pulley 18 are chosen to give asuitable speed differential between the belt 27 driven by pulley l7 andthe belt 28 driven by pulley 18. The gear train is mounted in housing 39on the chassis. The continuous belts 27,28 comprise broad, flat, stripsof synthetic or other rubber and have V-drive portions at the back toengage the V-grooves device for transferring 29,30 respectively in thepulleys 17,118 and (not shown) in idler pulleys 31,32. At the front ofthe machine the belts are substantially coplanar. They are supported ontheir upper run by formed plates 33,34 in such a way as to be broughtinto V" attitude (as indicated in FlG. 3) in their travel from front toback, the transition being substantially continuous. The surface of thebelts may be of any convenient form but is preferably rough enough tocause the required rotation without damage to the potatoes. The beltsmay be corrugated.

The following description is principally concerned with one feed unitonly of the machine but it will be understood that, except for the facethat the shaft 13 for both units is driven from one land wheel only, theoperation of both units is substantially identical; moreover, furtherunits may be arranged across the machine. The secondary hopper has asloping floor which may be adjustable and the reciprocating motioncauses potatoes to be urged towards the outlet which is directed towardsthe belt-feed device. The width of this outlet is selected to be such asto accommodate a multiplicity of potatoes across the outlet and ametering device is arranged at the outlet. By making the outlet, say,ten potatoes wide, the feed rate of each potato from the hopper issubstantially reduced (i.e. by a factor of 10) and the potatoes may betreated very gently. In this way chitted seed is far less damaged thanin known machines in which single potatoes are required to be fed.

The metering device comprises a pivoted angled trough 35. The trough isarranged to be rotated through approximately 90 about the axis 38 to tipa row of potatoes contained therein on to the feed belts at intervalsset by the speed of the land wheel of the machine. It will be arrangedthat the metering trough operates to ensure substantial continuity ofthe line of potatoes on the feed belts; that is, the trough will beoperated to deliver the following batch as the last potato in thepreceding batch approaches a position near the end of the trough.

Above the metering trough and with its axis parallel to that of thetrough is arranged a roller 40 faced with spikes of pliable rubber orthe like; the roller acts to prevent any excess of potatoes being fed tothe metering trough and is also rotated slightly at .each operation ofthe metering trough to avoid blockage that might be caused by bridgingor packing together of the potatoes. The roller may be arranged on apivoted frame and means may be provided for adjusting the frame to varythe clearance between roller and metering trough, i.e. to vary theoutlet gap from the secondary hopper.

The metering trough is provided with a sprocket indicated at 36 on theaxis 38 over which a chain drive 41 is passed, the chain drive beingattached to a spring (not shown) anchored at one end and being engagednear the other end by a cam member 37 which is driven from the shaft 24in the housing 29 to operate the metering trough regularly through itsdelivery and return cycle.

The trough is formed with a curved back surface 40 roughly concentricwith the axis 38. This surface serves to close the outlet of thesecondary hopper during the cycle of operation of the trough to preventfurther potatoes passing to the trough until the trough is returned toits filling position.

The surface of the trough may be corrugated if desired, the corrugationscorresponding roughly to the size of potatoes being sown.

In order to cover the potatoes in the furrow, soil deflectors 43 areprovided to form a ridge of soil over the potatoes. By forming therear-facing sidewalls 4 of the coulters with double walls as shown, itis possible to arrange hoppers for fertilizers with feed tubes to eachof the hollow sidewalls so as to deposit fertilizers in the furrowsbefore they are ridged by the deflectors 43.

A wood-slatted platform 42 is provided to accommodate an operator tomake any necessary adjustments that are required during operation of themachines.

lclaim: 1. In a potato planting machine of the type in which potatoesare fed from supply means onto at least one conveyor trough forplanting, the improvement comprising a conveyor trough having sideswhich are relatively movable with respect to each other so as to effectrotation of the potatoes within the trough during at least some part ofthe travel thereof along the trough.

2. A potato planting machine as claimed in claim 1, wherein at least oneside of said trough comprises a continuous belt adapted to be driven ata speed related to the land speed of the machine.

3. A potato planting machine as claimed in claim 2, wherein each side ofthe delivery trough comprises a continuous belt and the belts arearranged to be driven at substantially different speeds related to theland speed of the machine.

4. A potato planting machine as claimed in claim 3, wherein the beltsare arranged to be driven in opposite directions.

5. A potato planting machine as claimed in claim 3 further comprisingmeans for adjusting the speed of at least one of said belts relative tothe land speed of the machine.

6. A potato planting machine as claimed in claim 1 further comprisingsecondary hopper means and main hopper means for feeding potatoes tosaid secondary hopper means, said secondary hopper means including ametering device for feeding batches of potatoes in lines of singlepotatoes to the belt means.

7. A potato planting machine as claimed in claim 6 further comprisingmeans for agitating at least the floor of the secondary hopper means.

1. In a potato planting machine of the type in which potatoes are fedfrom supply means onto at least one conveyor trough for planting, theimprovement comprising a conveyor trough having sides which arerelatively movable with respect to each other so as to effect rotationof the potatoes within the trough during at least some part of thetravel thereof along the trough.
 2. A potato planting machine as claimedin claim 1, wherein at least one side of said trough comprises acontinuous belt adapted to be driven at a speed related to the landspeed of the machine.
 3. A potato planting machine as claimed in claim2, wherein each side of the delivery trough comprises a continuous beltand the belts are arranged to be driven at substantially differentspeeds related to the land speed of the machine.
 4. A potato plantingmachine as claimed in claim 3, wherein the belts are arranged to bedriven in opposite directions.
 5. A potato planting machine as claimedin claim 3 further comprising means for adjusting the speed of at leastone of said belts relative to the land speed of the machine.
 6. A potatoplanting machine as claimed in claim 1 further comprising secondaryhopper means and main hopper means for feeding potatoes to saidsecondary hopper means, said secondary hopper means including a meteringdevice for feeding batches of potatoes in lines of single potatoes tothe belt means.
 7. A potato planting machine as claimed in claim 6further comprising means for agitating at least the floor of thesecondary hopper means.